Project Hug
by 88SuperSwimmerNerdo88
Summary: Just a few cute drabbbles of Damian getting hugged by his family. slightly connected to 'Damian's Thoughts'.
1. Brother

**Hi. I'm just having one of those days when no matter what happens, it's still a crappy day. So I'm gonna and add this story. Yay! I hope you enjoy!**

**Also read by me: Young Justice- A Blast of the Past**

** Batman- Damian's Thoughts**

** Soul Eater- The Broken Mask**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Batman, Damian, Tim, Richard, Alfred, of any other characters being used. I also don't own Young Justice, or Soul Eater. Batman created by Bob Kane.**

**Chapter One: Little Brother **

I was in the training room, just me and my thoughts. And the sound of my fists and feet hitting punching bag, my pants and grunts. I just couldn't believe it. I got in a… argument… with Father earlier, about how I was ready to go out on patrol with him. He took Grayson! But he said _no_. That I don't know Gotham well enough. So I countered with "How the hell am I supposed to get to know Gotham when I'm not allowed outside?!"

Not my best idea. All I got was grounded and a particularly difficult work out as a punishment for back talking. I thought about Father, about Grayson, and Drake. Father trusted them, but not me. Grayson is his favorite, and he's not even blood related! Drake will always come before me, infuriatingly enough. Hell, Father even likes Jason more that me. Yeah, he trusts them, but not his own flesh and blood. That was the real reason he wouldn't let me come. What could I do to earn his trust? The answer to my frequently asked question evades me once more.

I looked to the work out sheet Father had given me. All my next set was, was a repetition of the last five sets. I sighed. Father and his dammed repetition. What was it he fancied about it all? If I can do it once, I can do it in combat, right? What was the point? Repetition, repetition, repetition. So much freaking repetition.

"Now what are you mumbling about?"

I turned to the infuriating voice of Timothy Drake. He was leaning on the door way, a small smirk on his face. "Not still brooding about your grounding, are you?"

I crossed my arm, adjusting my face to give an indigent glare. "Just thinking of ways to get rid of you without attaining Father's attention," I replied.

He feigned hurt. "You wound me, brother,"

"I'm not your brother," I growled.

"Well, not-my-brother, care to spar?"

I scoffed, "Why? We already proved I'm better,"

He smiled, "Not true. The first time we fought, you were trying to kill me, and I was trying to talk to you. Not a fair fight. The second time we fought, you shot a bat-grapple at me, and got me kidnapped by the League of Assassins. Not a fair fight," I glared at him, how long was he gong to hold that whole, 'got you kidnapped' thing against me?

"So you are suggesting a fair fight? Ok, but I warn you, I won't go easy on you,"

"I expect nothing less, little brother,"

I resisted the urge to throw up my arms in exasperation, "I'm _not_ your brother!"

He walked to the mat, and raised his fists. "Are we going to fight or talk?"

With a low growl, I struck. He blocked my hand easily, countering with his own attempt at a hit, which I avoided just as easily. And so we started, striking out with fists, feet, and flips, only sometimes managing to get a hit. Eventually, unable to constrain his annoying nature, he spoke up.

"See, the way I see it, we_ are_ brothers,"

I bent backwards, his fist missing my face by a tenth of an inch. I scoffed, "How?"

"Well, your biological dad is Bruce, and Bruce is basically my dad, my surrogate father. That makes you basically my little brother,"

"-tt- As if. You have no blood relation to my father, to me. We are not brothers,"

"Sure we are," he argued, "We have our own little family. Alfred is like our grandfather, Bruce is our dad, Dick the oldest brother, I'm the middle child, and you are our youngest brother, the baby of the family. Babs is our older sister, too. We're a family."

I attempted to kick his face, but he punched away, forcing me to flip backwards. "You are wrong, Drake. My family is my mother, my father, and my grandfather. Not you, or Grayson, or Pennyworth. Just my blood relations."

He sighed sadly, "I thought for sure by now you would understand. Understand that family ties are deeper than blood."

His words shocked me. I thought of Grandfather, whom I met only once. When he wanted to possess my body. Is that love, is that family?

And what about Mother, first using me as a pawn in her crazy war with Father, then protecting me from Grandfather, and then disowning me completely. Her affections for me were bipolar to say the least. Does she love me, think of me as her family, care about me at all? Or does she still want me to kill Father?

Does Father care about me? He did save me from Grandfather, he called me his son. He tried to protect me from Mother; he is training me to be Robin. Is all this repetition him making sure I can do it to save my life? Father took me in, gave me a home and… a family?

Grayson, as Batman, he never gave up on me, he still won't. He believes I can be good, do good. He took care of me when Father was 'Dead'. He cares about me, and I …I care about him.

Pennyworth, always there, no matter how heinous I can be. The ever certain, ever caring… Grandfather. Better than my grandfather, by far.

And Tim? We don't get along; we have never liked each other. But he has helped me, even when I leave him in the dust. He has never really gotten into our fights, always holding back. Even now, as I stand completely still, thinking of this revelation, Tim stands there, waiting.

"Drake, I have stopped fighting. You had the perfect chance to attack, to beat me, to prove you are better. Why didn't you?"

He sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. "Because, I don't actually want to _hurt _you, little brother."

He walked towards me, wrapping his arms around me. I stood still for a few seconds, then slowly wrapped my arms around his waist. Family. Alfred, Father, Dick, Tim, and me. We are a family.

Little Brother.

He uses the term so loosely.

Little Brother.

It is quite a comforting title.


	2. The Recording

**Hey-Hey! It's SuperSwimmerNerdo again, with a long overdue chapter! First I would like to say to some people who have commented, no, I will not have Dami get hugged by a bear. I don't know about you, but I like Damian, and will not put him in harms way. And another, I don't care if something happened in the comics that took away the first chapters credibility, just assume that it happened before. Anyways, enjoy the chapter! ;D This takes place during **_**Batman and Robin Issue 8: Black Dawn**_** As Damian listens to the recording Bruce made for him.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Batman, Batman and Robin or the recording I ma quoting throughout the chapter.**

**Also by me: Batman- Damian's Thoughts**

**Young Justice- A Blast of the Past, The Bad Thing About Girls**

**Soul Eater- The Broken Mask**

**The Darkest Powers- My Problems**

Damian's POV

I woke immediately after Father shut my bedroom door. My hand moved slowly, painfully towards my bedside table, grabbing the flash drive he left. I plugged it into my ipod, and listened.

_Not knowing where you are, but who you are with, is painful and frustrating. I'm recording this as I scour the city looking for you Damian. _

I felt slightly guilty at that one. Maybe I could have tipped him off, said something like, "Hey Father, this is what I'm going to do, so we can take down NoBody."

Maybe he would have said something like, "O.K. son, sounds like a good idea. I'll be close by and ready when you give the signal. I'm so proud of you Damian."

No, that is just too much to hope for. He'd have said something more like, "What the hell, Damian? That's a horrible idea. No, absolutely not. We'll do this my way."

Yeah, he'd have said that.

_ Hoping that some rock I turn over gives me a lead- points me in the right direction. _

I knew what that felt like. Knowing that there is a compass in you pocket, but not knowing how to read it. But Father's compass in the pocket, was knowing that the clue is right under your nose, but unable to see it. My compass in the pocket is my moral compass in my heart. It's never pointing quite north. I want to be a good person for Father, but I can't let go of my anger. Whenever I go out, all I see is the evil that created the circumstances that led to my birth. Maybe if there was no evil in the world, my family wouldn't be torn apart, I could be with Father, and Mother, and Pennyworth, and Grandfather, and Grayson, and Todd, and maybe even Drake, without worrying about bloodshed. All I see is evil, and I want it gone, permanently. But I can't do that, its cold-blooded murder. It's wrong. I wish Mother never taught me to kill. Because now, I'm a murder, and I really understand what I did. And I hate it.

_I thought I might be able to say these things face-to-face, but the moment seems to keep escaping me-escaping us. _

There are so many things I wish I had told Father. My journal of brutal drawings, how I constantly want to kill every criminal I meet, not just the super criminals, How I wish all evil could be wiped off the planet, never to return, so my family can be together. How I looked up to him before I even knew him, how when I found him, he was everything I hoped for and more. That I strive to make him proud, despite my bad way of showing it. All I want is for him to love me for me. At first, but now, I want him to love me for the me I want to be. The me I'm _going _to be. I never want to kill again, I never will. I will fight it, the urge to kill all I see, and I will be what Gotham needs, like him. I will make him happy he did not give up on me yet, and I will be proud of_ myself_. This I promise on my grandparent's grave.

_I'm your Father, you're my son. My job is to love you and protect you. It's supposed to be simple, but it somehow keeps getting harder. _

I don't really understand this part. Is he saying that it is getting harder to protect me, or love me? I would understand if he means it is getting harder to protect me, I'm not making it easy, what with all my running off to pretend to join the dark side. But am I really so difficult, he finds it hard to_ love_ me? No, I am almost certain he means it is getting harder to protect me. If not, he would not have come and saved me with so much anger, would he?

_I know we're never going to be throwing a baseball in the back of the Manor after a tough day, but I'd be lying if I said that some part of me wouldn't enjoy that mundane existence even for a moment. _

Throwing a ball. Hmm. What a simple, unrealistic idea for us. Man, does that sound good. To just throw a ball, back and forth in the back yard, like the normal family we aren't. Playing catch is the poster activity for a normal and healthy relationship between father and son, like sewing of cooking is for mother and daughter. When father and son activities are suggested around normal families, they think of playing catch, while Father and I think of training, and going on patrol. We are not normal, and for Father to indirectly suggest doing something normal, is…weird. But I never said that it is something I wouldn't want to do.

_Right now, I'm at one of our emergency uniform sites. Your suit and belt are gone. And you've turned off the tracking device inside the belt. _

I was angry and felt betrayed. I did what I had to do. When I said the lie was over, I meant it.

_Only one word keeps pounding in my brain. Why? Why would you step into the darkness so fast?_

Like I said, I was angry and felt betrayed. My Father didn't trust me at all. I needed to prove to him that I could do what was right, without his "gently" guiding hand pushing me in the right direction. Then I failed him. No matter what I said, no matter how much I blamed him, it was all my fault. No matter what I do after all this, I'm a murder.

_But who am I kidding? I know the answer to that. If I'm going to be honest with you, Damian, I'll need to be honest with myself. It's not just the upbringing that your mother forced on you that made you who you are…I'm also to blame. _

That hurt, a little. He says it like he's admitting murder. Like I'm an accident. Like there is something wrong with me. I know that I earlier said that I want to change, to be more like Father, for my moral compass to point north, always, but Some part of me still wants him to love me for me.

_I didn't tell you everything about Morgan Ducard at the Batcave earlier because of what happened to us in France. I took a long hard look at myself because of him and his father, and I didn't like what I saw_.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Father wasn't always the perfectly morale man he is today? What?

_But before I tell you how my story intersects with the Ducard's, I need to start at the beginning of theirs…as you already know, Henri Ducard was a master huntsman. Every intelligence agency in every country paid highly for his services. If someone needed to be caught, Ducard was the one doing the catching. Ducard was a true lone wolf- until he met Felicity Strode. It's the only time he in his life he let his heart rule his head. And for a man like Ducard things got complicated. In his life a family was a liability… in more ways than one. _

_Ducard didn't know that Felicity was an assassin hired by a terrorist cell who had lost high-ranking members thanks to Ducard's own investigative skills over the years. Felicity's mission was to kill Ducard...but instead she fell in love with him, following him around the world like a devoted wife as he went about his business, never revealing her secret to him or anyone else._

_Eventually Felicity's past came back to haunt her—the terrorist cell finally found her. They wanted what they had paid for—they wanted Ducard dead and if she refused they would torture and kill her son, Morgan, before her eyes._

_Even though Morgan barely saw Ducard 25 out of the 365 day a year, he worshiped him…_

Now where have I heard that one before? Oh wait…

…_and when he overheard his mother on a call agreeing to kill his father to save her only son…Morgan took maters into his own hands, as did Ducard, until Morgan convinced his father that he was the only one he could trust._

_Ducard took Morgan under his wing, and put him through a relentless regimen, to strengthen his endurance and man-hunting skills. He had high expectations of his son, and taught him everything he knew._

Hmm, high expectations, this is starting to sound more and more familiar

_It was around this time that I'd already trained with tow of the Far East's martial arts masters, Chu Chin Li and Tsunetomo, each one adding an integral piece to the arsenal I'd be carrying back to Gotham. My next stop was France and trying to locate Henri Ducard to help me prepare for the next stage of my mission. I had some leads and followed them to every dead end I could find, hoping it would stir things up and interest Ducard to come looking for me. It worked. We_ (Bruce and Morgan) _fought for fifteen minutes. I thought whoever this was, he was good…but I was better. And so the moment presented itself. And that's when I learned, to be careful of what you wished for._

I can hardly believe it. Father trained with Ducard? Ducard killed his mother for his father? It sounded like a bad fairy tale, but so far, everything in my life has been. But why would Father train with the Ducards, when everyone knew they were killers? Perhaps Father thought he could complete the training without killing anyone.

_Fells like I've been holding my breath for hours, Damian. There's only one ten-year-old who would be in the vicinity at two in the morning, and it has to be you. Your trails getting hotter, son, which means I better get to the point of why I'm telling you this story._

_I wasn't that naïve to think that Ducard would take me under his wing for nothing. Ducard knew I was prepared to pay for the privilege of being in his master class. It was no secret we all wanted something from each other. It was the perfect storm, and inside the eye of this storm was our syllabus for tracking and capturing the elusive terrorist Hassan that Ducard had been contracted for._

_We followed Hassan and his acolytes across the globe, sometimes only minuets away from preventing another one of Hassan's senseless slaughters. _(On the mission, Morgan told Bruce that he called Interpol, but really, Ducard had been hired to kill Hassan, and did so. Bruce got mad and left them in the hotel they used as a base of operations. Ducard told Morgan to kill Bruce.)

_Two words saved my life that day…partly cloudy. I got lucky that some sun peeked through and reflected off the scope glass on the roof across the street. It gave me an extra second. _(Morgan shot Bruce, and in an alley minutes later, Bruce attacked Morgan, and almost killed him. He then dropped Morgan through the skylight in Ducards apartment, and left.)

_And that's how I wrapped up the last of my training days overseas, Damian. Now you know everything thee is to know about the Ducards, and my own horrendous actions that have brought us o this point. _

Everything makes sense now, but I kind of wish it didn't. Because knowing what Father did to Morgan before all this, it scares me, what would happen if Joker got him mad enough, and Father killed him, and he was no longer the Dark Knight, that he was now a murderer? How would Father react to realizing that he had become the very thing he fights against? Could I help him? Not without Pennyworth, and Grayson, and Drake, and all the others. Even then, we might not be able to heal him. It would be like he died. I couldn't live with myself if that happened.

I remembered the pain of Morgan torturing me, and the rage Father showed when he found us. I remember his words; they are etched into my memory.

"_You try to murder my son—and expect to live?!"_

I was scared, at that point, that Farther would break his golden rule, and kill him, but somehow, he fought it, and the only blood on his hands was the blood of broken bones, no dead bodies.

I later went to Father, and told him that I listened to all of the tape. We talked about redemption, and how it isn't really real. That I'll remember this forever, but I can move past it, not let it haunt my future as Robin. I can learn from this, and never have to kill again. Father said that he will never give up on me. I won't either.

I finally fall asleep. The images passing through my mind are terrifying, Morgan, with a knife at Father through, ready to kill him. My hand on the gun at the ambassador's head. All the horrible thing s Mother had me do, and always there, Morgan's dead body, floating in the ocean, after I killed him.

I awake with a start. I'm scared, but what do I do? I rarely have nightmares, and none this bad. I get out of bed, and pull on some slippers. The manor is cold at night. I walk to the kitchen; I hope Pennyworth left some cookies out for me. They are awesome! What I find in the kitchen is surprising. Father is leaning in the counter, glass of water in hand, staring at something that isn't there.

I am afraid, I don't want Father to know that I am scared, but I see the plate of cookies, and I need them. So, as quietly as I can, I tip-toe to the counter behind Father's back, and just as I grab a cookie, a booming voice resounds through the halls.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?"

I froze, then whispered, "I just wanted a cookie."

He laughed, "No you don't, Damian. Now come here and tell me what has you up at three in the morning."

I walked around the counter, so I was facing Father, looked at the ground and mumble, "I had a nightmare,"

Father could have made a joke and said that he didn't hear me, but he did, and he knew what it meant. He crouched down so he was eye-to-eye with me.

"What happened?"

I kept staring at my feet as I replied, "I kept seeing Morgan, and other stuff Mother made me do,"

Then, for the first time ever, Father pulled me into a hug. I just stood there for a second, as he whispered in my ear, "It's ok, he's gone. She can't hurt you anymore,"

Soon I realized that I had wrapped my arms around Father's neck, and was crying into his shoulder.

I didn't try to hold back my tears.


End file.
